Defining Down the Roadmap

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After meeting last week with the United States security coordinator, General Keith Dayton, officials of the Palestinian Authority said they plan to deploy about 500 security forces in Nablus, the largest city in the West Bank, in an effort to end the anarchy there.

The PA is reportedly completing preparations to deploy the force, after two months of training at a camp near Jericho, for a “major operation” to check endemic criminal activity in Nablus — car theft, drug trafficking, extortion, and robbery.

General Dayton was quoted as saying, “This is where the Palestinian state will get its first real test.” Success in Nablus, he said, would “send a message throughout the West Bank,” and to Israel, that the PA “can do the job.”

Actually, this will be the fourth “real test” for the PA security forces. They have already had at least three such tests in the past two years, and flunked them all.

In September 2005, after Israel withdrew from Gaza, the PA security forces stood by as the former Israeli synagogues, which could have been used as schools, were burned and as Israeli greenhouses, which could have provided jobs, were looted. Security at the Gaza-Egyptian border collapsed within three days.

Over the succeeding two years, the PA forces proved unable to prevent massive smuggling of weapons and terrorists across the border from Egypt, or stop the daily firing of rockets into Israel from Gaza, or prevent tunneling under the border and the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldiers.

Finally, in June 2007, the PA forces were routed from Gaza by Hamas forces they outnumbered. The PA forces have since been unable to return to Gaza and are now charged with policing only the remaining half of their putative state.

As “real tests” go, sending 500 policemen to Nablus would seem a pretty easy challenge. The PA force will not be assigned any anti-terrorist activity, but simply charged with creating law and order.

Israel security sources indicate, however, that the PA is concerned about its ability to gain control over Nablus, since the effort may require confrontation with armed gangs affiliated with Fatah. Local residents have indicated that Fatah’s Aksa Martyrs Brigades are largely responsible for the anarchy in Nablus.

The PA mission to Nablus is occurring as Secretary of State Rice is seeking to convene a conference to negotiate a Palestinian state “as soon as possible,” even though the PA has been unable to enforce basic civic order, much less meet its Phase I Roadmap obligation to engage in “sustained, targeted, and effective operations” to dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.

General Dayton’s “test” for the PA reflects the continuing process of defining down the conditions for a Palestinian state, consistent with Secretary Rice’s waiver of Palestinian compliance with Phase I and II obligations as a precondition to Phase III final status negotiations.

President Bush’s April 14, 2004 letter to Israel, issued as part of the Gaza disengagement deal, committed America to lead efforts “to build the capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism, dismantle terrorist organizations, and prevent the areas from which Israel has withdrawn from posing a threat that would have to be addressed by any other means.”

The State Department thereafter appointed General William Ward as security coordinator and sent him and his team to the region on March 9, 2005. In his testimony to Congress on June 30, 2005, General Ward reported the PA security sector numbered 58,000-plus, of whom only about 20,000 to 22,000 actually showed up for work, composing a force that was “fractured and dysfunctional” and “unresponsive to any central command.”

Two months later, Israel completed its withdrawal from Gaza, and the PA security forces promptly flunked their first real test.

General Ward was succeeded by General Dayton, who testified before Congress, on March 15, 2006, that the performance of the Palestinian security forces in confronting terrorists and dismantling terrorist organizations had been “disappointing.” Three months later, terrorists crossed the un-policed Israeli border and kidnapped Gilad Shalit. The PA security forces took no steps to end the daily rockets into Israel.

In May of this year, General Dayton reportedly told the State Department and Congress that the PA security forces were demonstrating satisfactory progress. Several weeks later, Hamas took over Gaza.

American diplomacy seems increasingly divorced from the facts on the ground, as the State Department redoubles its efforts to create a Palestinian state each time the PA flunks a test. In anticipation of the ill-considered international conference to commence final status negotiations, the current test for the PA is to muster a 500 person force to combat common crime in Nablus. It is uncertain if the PA will meet even that test.

After nearly three years of American military advice and assistance, the Palestinians are nowhere near meeting the conditions previously set for final status negotiations, much less ready for a state. Unable to meet basic Roadmap commitments, or impose law and order in even half a state, they have a president who does not control even his own “military wing” in Nablus. But with the latest “test,” the bar has been lowered again.

Mr. Richman edits the Web log Jewish Current Issues.


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